Students become authors at Edgewood Highland

By JEN COWART
Posted 7/10/19

By JEN COWART It could have just been another stand-alone assessment for the second-grade students at Edgewood Highland Elementary School. But thanks to a collaborative effort on the part of the faculty and staff, it was instead a real-life lesson in the

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Students become authors at Edgewood Highland

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It could have just been another stand-alone assessment for the second-grade students at Edgewood Highland Elementary School.

But thanks to a collaborative effort on the part of the faculty and staff, it was instead a real-life lesson in the world of researching and book publishing that culminated with the moment that every author treasures – when they finally hold a copy of a book they’ve written.

“The second-grade trimester three social studies assessment was for each student to choose a person from history, research that person’s life and write a biography,” reading specialist Genevieve Cicerone said. “Their ideas could be presented in a file folder project, a multi-media presentation, role-playing, a puppet or a soda bottle person.”

Instead, Cicerone expanded the assessment into an in-depth, hands-on project that would be one the students would remember for the rest of their lives.

“I thought it would be meaningful for the children to have the opportunity to undergo the real world experience of being a published author,” she said.

Cicerone decided to broach the idea of the students’ research being turned into two books, one for each class, filled with the biographies they would write about their chosen famous person in history. In order for that type of a project to be pulled off, however, she needed the help of not only classroom teachers Isabelle Coelho and Ana Santos, but also art educator Ellen Laprocina and the school’s Parent Teacher Organization.

“I approached my grade two teachers with this project and they were all for it,” she said. “We knew this would be a rigorous process for the students with the initial research, drafting, revising, editing, but my teachers were willing to undertake this with them so that they would have this experience. At Edgewood, we feel it is so essential for students to see school as a place where they can try real-world experiences and not view school as a place where they are simply taught skills and assessed on those skills.”

With the collaborative efforts of all involved, the project was completed over a period of about six weeks. On May 31, Cicerone entered one of the grade two classrooms, where all of the students and both teachers had gathered together. It was the end of Reading Week, and the students had no idea what was in the two cardboard boxes Cicerone carried in with her.

As the boxes were opened, the students’ excitement was palpable as they saw the hardcover editions of their class books emerge from the boxes. Their eyes widened and they cheered and waited for their own personal copy of their class book to reach their hands.

From that moment on, the students were engaged in looking at not only their own written biographies and illustrations but those of their classmates. Students could be seen reading together and exploring the books excitedly, their pride more than evident on their faces and in their voices.

Cicerone was thankful for the collaboration that took place in order to make the project possible and hopes to expand the it even further in the future.

“I can’t emphasize enough how important the collaboration and teamwork was in this,” she said. “I could not have pulled this project off by myself without the teamwork we had here. School should be a place students want to come every day and broaden their knowledge and gain meaningful experiences.” 

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